UNLEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS: UNDERSTANDING AND RETHINKING THE WAY ORGANIZATIONS LEARN AND CHANGE

Abstract

Purpose- This paper aims to portray the overall picture in the relevant literature regarding unlearning and intends to emphasize its role both in organizational learning and organizational change processes. Through a framework, it aims to figure out how unlearning should be considered in organizations, especially in management practices, and propose a future reseach agenda to develop an advanced field.

Methodology- The paper summarizes the relevant literature from a critical perspective; it reviews definitions and aims to clarify what unlearning means for organizations at individual, group and organizational levels and argues how the concept of unlearning has been mentioned in models, frameworks and ideas in relation to organizational change, organizational learning and learning organizations. It provides range of definitions to develop the limited understanding of unlearning in management practices, and examines models, frameworks and ideas to clarify the confusions in literature.

Findings- Literature on organizational learning and change has elaborated on the idea of unlearning from different perspectives, highlighted its importance and attempted to clarify its meaning and processes in organizations at various levels. However, limited research has been carried out where the process of unlearning has been reflected in different organizational settings, and relatedly, fewer seminal works, compared to organizational learning and organizational change ones, remained acknowledged.

Conclusion- Current knowledge in organizational studies restricts a detailed understanding of unlearning and lack of empirical studies leaves the territory under-researched and blurred. Through the framework proposed above and future research in parallel, we aim to capture a widened understanding of unlearning in literature and intend to construct a new perspective in management practices, mainly in organizational learning and change processes.

Keywords

• Unlearning,unlearning in organizations,organizational change,organizational learning,learning organization

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